SC to hear plea against BSF for extra-judicial killings in WB

A bench of justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar deferred the hearing for Monday when the matter would be taken up along with a similar petition raising the issue of extra-judicial killings.

Petitioner Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha, a Kolkata NGO alleged that there are more than 200 cases where the BSF personnel indulged in extra-judicial killings, torture in the border area and those cases were never probed by the state police.

"The present case will show, the procedure followed by the West Bengal Police makes a mockery of the rule of law. This petition pertains to the cases of torture or torture followed by extra-judicial executions of more than 200 Indian nationals by the Border Security Force between 2005 and 2011," said petitioner's counsel Colin Gonsalves.

"In over 100 cases, there are eye witnesses to the BSF taking into custody the person concerned and there are eye witnesses to the torture in custody of the person concerned leading to his death," he further said.

It was alleged in the petition that instead of registering an FIR against the BSF personnel, it is registered against the deceased and the case is closed on that basis.

"As a result not a single one of the more than 200 cases, set out in this petition, of torture and killing, has been investigated by the police. Thus the BSF operate above the law, their mechanical explanations as to how death came about is accepted as true in all cases, the statements of the eye witnesses are not recorded since no investigation is done and the case is closed," the petition alleged.